Wave crashes on JCHS

GREENVILLE, Ohio — The regular-season finale was a frustrating but familiar story for the Patriots.
They struggled to stop the Greenville defensively.
And they had a hard time moving the ball on offense. When they did gain some yardage, a mistake halted them in their tracks.
In failing to reach the 100-yard mark offensively for the fourth time this season, and suffering its fourth shutout, the Jay County High School football team suffered a 44-0 loss Friday to the host Green Wave.
“The first half performance was better than the last couple of weeks,” said JCHS coach Steve Boozier, whose team trailed 35-0 at halftime in last week’s 42-0 loss to Heritage and 28-0 this week. “In the second half, the performance, not the effort, but the performance, disappeared.
“It’s not very often you’re down 28-0 at halftime and don’t feel like you’ve been physically whipped. … They just did what they did and we didn’t do a very good job of stopping it. But at the same time, I think we did as much to stop ourselves in the first half as they did.”
Greenville (2-6) set the tone on its opening drive as each of its first three plays went for double-digit yards. It took the Green Wave eight plays and less than four minutes to march down the field, scoring on a 7-yard run by Tyler Zimmerman.
Another short Zimmerman TD run and a 23-yard scoring pass from Jacob Burk to Tyler Holzapfel staked the home team to a 20-0 lead. Meanwhile, JCHS (2-7) went three-and-out on its first possession and gave the ball away on downs in four plays on its second.
“We were able to run all of our stuff tonight,” said Greenville coach T.J. Powers, whose squad lost by one last week to Muncie Southside. “The big thing is we controlled the line of scrimmage. It all starts up front on both sides of the ball. … And we tackled well tonight. That’s the best we’ve tackled all year.
“We really needed it. We’ve had a rough year up to this point. We’re really happy with our performance tonight.”
The Patriots found an offensive groove on their third drive, picking up their first first-down on a nine-yard run from Cade Price. A Blake Crouch run of eight yards on the 10th play of the drive moved the ball inside the Greenville 20-yard line, but then a mistake stopped the surge.
Jay County’s next play went backwards six yards, and the squad was also hit with a 15-yard penalty for a chop block.
Three plays later it gave the ball back to the Green Wave after coming up short on fourth-and-8, and picked up just one first down the rest of the way.
“That penalty was crucial,” said Boozier, whose team finished with just 38 total yards thanks in part to 18 plays that went for negative yardage. “And then in the second half we got a decent return after they kicked it out of bounds three times, and Cade Price gets a great run that was blocked really well. And I’m thinking, ‘OK, here we go, we’ll get back in this thing.’ And then three plays in a row we’re moving backwards. And from that point forward we just didn’t move the ball consistently at all.”
Greenville scored single TDs in the second, third and fourth quarters. It added the final two points when a shotgun snap sailed over Brock McFarland’s head and into the end zone, leaving the JCHS quarterback no choice but to bat it out of bounds for a safety.
Zimmerman racked up 103 yards on just nine carries to lead the Green Wave, which gained 288 of its 385 yards of total offense on the ground. Burk added 51 yards rushing, and completed each of his first five pass attempts on the way to finishing 6-of-9 for 97 yards.
Power said he was especially proud of his defense, which had allowed an average of more than 40 points per game this season.
“We really wanted to get a shutout when we got into the third quarter (and it was still scoreless,” he said. “I brought in the JVs pretty early in the game, but I wanted to leave most of our starters out on defense to keep the shutout.”
Cade Price’s 42 yards on 17 carries led the Patriot offense. Blake Crouch added 30 yards on 11 attempts.
Jay County has not gotten on the scoreboard since defeating Connersville 38-6 on Sept. 24, having been outscored 135-0 since. The four shutouts are a record for JCHS, which had never been blanked more than twice in a single season prior to this year.
“We’re all disappointed, we’re frustrated, but a lot of those kids are 15 (years old) out there,” said Boozer. “And we’re not going to jump off the deep end on them, because by the time they’re 18-year-olds, they’re going to be pretty darn good football players.”
Tournament play begins next week when Jay County hosts New Haven Friday at 7 p.m.[[In-content Ad]]